


You Will Get a Sentimental Feeling When You Hear

by Draco_sollicitus



Series: 25 Days of Damerey [13]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Celebrity AU, Dad!Poe, Damerey December, Discussion of Past Abuse, Draco's 25 Days of Damerey, F/M, Famous Rey, Matchmaker BB-8 (Star Wars), Modern AU, Pop star Rey, human BB-8, meet cute
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-16
Updated: 2018-12-16
Packaged: 2019-09-20 13:59:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,009
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17023932
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Draco_sollicitus/pseuds/Draco_sollicitus
Summary: Finally free of her abusive ex-manager, pop star Rey Niima is starting a new stage of her career by launching a national tour during the holiday season. While loneliness and isolation have been her constant companions since being thrust in the spotlight at a young age, she encounters a small child in Chicago who just might change her fate.





	You Will Get a Sentimental Feeling When You Hear

**Author's Note:**

> look now I'm only a day behind, and if I get the (Sinful Sunday) Damerey December update up today, then I'll be zero days behind! Yayy!!
> 
>  
> 
> Heads Up/Warning: While it's vaguely discussed in the introduction to the fic, Rey's backstory here aligns with Kesha's, and Rey speaks about manipulated and abused by her manager, Unkar Plutt. (The major element that had this Rated T and not Rated G)

_“Welcome to the Even Later Show with Lando - here’s your host, the man himself, the Real Caped Crusader, Lando Calrissian!”_

Cheers erupt from the audience as Lando bounds from stage left and jumps up on his platform. His cape - bright red tonight - flares out behind him, his velvet green suit a delicious counterpoint to his trademark accessory.

“Thank you!” He bows a few more times, laughing charmingly before extending his hand stage right. “Now, please welcome tonight’s guest. You met her when “Little Miss Nobody” hit Number One on the charts in 2006; and, you’ve missed her the past three years without even a new single to sustain us. Here to promote her new album and her surprise return to the industry, put your hands together for the pop princess herself: Rey Niima!”

Screams erupt throughout the studio as a slender young woman emerges from stage right, a shy smile on her lovely face as she nods and waves to her fans, many of whom bear signs and photographs of her from various stages of her career. She falters at the sight of one sign, not visible on the camera - _“I Stand With Survivors_ ” - and then her smile seems a bit more plastered on than before.

She shakes Lando’s hand, and while he’s famous for flirting with guests, it doesn’t go unnoticed that he doesn’t kiss her hand or go in for a hug, the way he normally does with celebrities - no, not after what she’s been through.

They settle into their chairs and start chatting about the weather in New York City. Rey admits that while the rain’s been a bit of a bother, “It’s nothing compared to England this time of year.” Her accent is even more noticeable than it had been when she’d hit the music scene twelve years ago, when she was twelve, whatever trained affectation that had been forced upon her now fully gone from her voice.

“So, Rey.” Lando’s smile dims, and his face smoothly transitions to one of sympathy. Rey seems to sense the change as well, and she straightens up. “Do you feel like talking about it?”

“I do, actually.” Rey smiles at him, and then at the camera. “Thank you for asking first, though. Some days, I really don’t want to talk about it, or even think about it.”

“I can only imagine.” Lando nods and leans forward, true compassion in his eyes - no doubt, he’s remembering the first interview he and Rey participated in, back when she was fourteen. His daughter is her age, his son, only two years younger. He can’t fathom what she’s been through, and it’s not his practiced affability that shows right now. It’s honest empathy. “What was it like to find out you had lost the case?”

“Devastating.” Rey looks down, and Lando doesn’t try to do anything to get her to look back up, to improve the angle. This is her show, tonight. He’s fine letting her run it - she’s been controlled enough. “I - the judge even said that what - _he’d_ done was abhorrent.” _He_ is referring to Unkar Plutt, of course, but Lando and Rey had agreed that his name didn’t deserve being said any more than it already had. “But, because of the nonsense Unkar’s lawyer pulled, they weren’t able to hit him on any of the charges.”

“Despicable, truly.” Lando shakes his head, his jaw tightening visibly. The camera focuses on both of them, keeping their body language apparent in the shot. “And then to find out that you were being countersued?”

“By the record company, yeah.” Rey buries her face in her hands for a moment and then sits tall and proud. “For breach of contract, all because I spoke to another record company about producing the kind of music I wanted to make. I was told that if I produced any music, tried to sell any records without them until December 2017, they’d ruin my life.” Rey fidgets with the hem of her dress, an almost unnoticeable motion. “As if they hadn’t already.”

“I feel like the public outcry was a good start to punishing them.” Lando smirks at the camera. “I don’t think their stock is ever going to recover.”

Rey shrugs sadly. “I don’t know if revenge really feels that good. It doesn’t give me my childhood back, or the three years I wasn’t allowed to make music.”

“I guess it doesn’t.” There’s a beat, a pause, a practiced moment on Lando’s part to let Rey’s statement sink in with the audience in the studio and at home - looking out at the studio audience, he doesn’t see many dry eyes. “But, you’re taking back your life now. Tell me a little about “The Last One.”

“It’s a little funny, really, that I named it that, because I don’t intend for it to be the last album at all,” Rey says with a small grin. “But really, it’s more like a reference to the fact that it was the last time they were ever going to hurt me, the last album I’d ever make while in their shadow, and also, like, I’m the last one standing when all the dust settles. I’m the survivor here; they were just obstacles on my way to get here.”

“And your national tour kicks off in a few days?”

“Two days from now, yeah.”

“Are you excited for that?”

“It’ll be nice to see the country on my own terms. I work with Leia Organa now - I understand you know her?”

Lando cackles briefly and nods. “Unfortunately for her, I do.” It’s a well-known fact that Lando and Leia’s husband had a torrid affair throughout the eighties - they’re all friends now, but Leia and Lando’s styles are so contrasting, it’s a marvel they get along as well as they do.

“Yes, well, Leia’s been an absolute dream. She let me help plan every stage of my tour, and I have a real vocal coach now - her brother, Luke.”

“The Songbirds from the South.” Lando shakes his head, marveling. “They were quite the power siblings in the seventies.”

“They’re still incredible,” Rey says proudly. “I’ve learned a lot from both of them. I have really high hopes for this tour.”

“As do we all, Rey.” Lando beams at her. “Why this time of year though for a tour, if I may ask?”

“Well, as nervous as I am for the tour, I’m glad it’s over Christmas. No matter what’s happened to me, I haven’t lost my faith in people - and isn’t that what Christmas is about? Faith in each other, kindness, new beginnings? I just...I want anyone out there who’s been through what I’ve been through to see this, to see me trying to start over, and...well, I just want to be a good example for people struggling with their own ghosts. Christmas can be a really hard time of year, and I really, really want to bring joy to people in any way I can.”

Lando looks legitimately touched at her declaration,and he has to clear his throat, his eyes shining noticeably under the lights, before speaking again. “We’re almost to commercial, and I understand you’ll be singing something for us after the break?” Rey nods eagerly. “Any last thoughts on how your style’s transformed since 2006?”

“I know who I am, now,” Rey says after a pause, and she nods as if to punctuate her statement. “Yeah. Definitely. I’m really, incredibly proud of the music I was able to make on this album, and I can’t wait to share it with the world.”

“We can’t wait either.” Lando points at the audience. “Right folks?”

The shout of assent washes over host and guest, and Rey turns bright pink, but looks sweetly pleased all the same.

***

Rey likes Chicago - she thinks. The pizza is delicious, and the city is pleasant, and she thinks the lake is absolutely beautiful (although it looks more like the sea to her - Americans and their strange geography). But, she’s also exhausted and only nine cities into her tour. Her security has been breathing down her back (not that that’s particularly new) since she landed, this team a little more intense than the one she’d been traveling with out west.

It might have something to do with the obsessive letters she’s been getting from someone calling himself Kylo Ren, and Rey trusts Leia’s judgement (a trust that had been hard won, but well-established at every turn since she left Plutt), but still. She just wants a minute to herself.

She gets out of the hotel room _somehow,_ relying on the sneakiness that had benefited her as an orphan in England; disguised under a baseball hat and sunglasses and a thick woollen coat, Rey lets herself out onto the street and strolls contentedly along the avenue a few hours after her first concert, one of her rare afternoon performances.

No one looks at her twice when she buys a hot dog from a street vendor, and she munches on it happily while studying some fascinating sculptures near the center of the city. Rey desperately needs caffeine - although it’s almost 9 pm, she has no intention of being asleep until well after midnight. Her sleep schedule is screwed, and she needs caffeine an hour ago.

She steps out of Starbucks, still blessedly unrecognized - and Rey always thinks about this, this awkward dance she’s always performing between _please, Dear God, no one recognize me,_ and _Dear God, why doesn’t anyone actually see me_? - and sips her latte while studying cars pass by. The rush and screech of traffic surrounds her, and while she yearns for the quiet of the countryside that she grew up in (and she definitely liked the concert she gave two nights ago, out past some cornfields near an important Midwestern city), she finds that doesn’t mind the bustle of the city too much. It’s easy to get lost in, to go unnoticed in. She can just be a normal person (even though she can never really be a normal person).

Rey’s thinking about this when a sound far more pleasant than the urban symphony reaches her ears.

 _“But as long as you love me so_ ” - one of the most beautiful singing voices Rey’s ever heard, in or out of a studio, reaches her ears - “ _Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow._ ”

Without thinking, she walks towards the voice.

“ _When we finally kiss goodnight, how I’ll hate going out in the storm,”_ Rey heads down the sidewalk, curious to see who’s singing. The quality of the voice tells her that this is no recording - a man nearby is actually singing. A street performer, maybe? _“But if you really hold me tight, all the way home I’ll be warm._ ”

She turns the corner in time to see a man wearing a thick coat close the back door of a car. He opens the driver’s side door a second later, and she can’t see his face - she can only see dark hair tucked under a beanie. “ _The fire is slowly dying,_ ” he continues to sing, but the voice is muffled and then lost to her as the door slams shut behind him and the car starts up.

Then, the car pulls away from the curb, and Rey’s left on the street, feeling oddly more alone than she had before.

Realizing the time, she hurries back to the hotel, slipping past reception and a group of people gathered near the desk, and slips her keycard into the elevator’s reader. It takes her up to the top floor of the swanky hotel - Leia’s choice, again - and Rey readies herself for a dressing down by her security.

Surprisingly, none comes. They must have assumed she was napping, and the young man near her door looks legitimately surprised when she walks past him. “Had to get ice,” she says cheerfully.

“Alright.” He eyes her, and her obvious lack of ice, warily.

***

Before her concert the next night, Rey is able to slip away from her security for her typical pre-performance jitters check.

With Unkar, she wouldn’t have been allowed out of her dressing room - while Leia’s concerned for her safety, she refuses to control her, and Rey gets to spend the few hours before singing to herself, collecting herself mentally and doing her vocal warm-ups on her own schedule. Luke is pretty chill about the whole thing as well, more than happy to take her word for it that she warmed up. He understands that as a 24-year-old woman who has over a decade experience in the business, she knows her own limits better than he does.

Rey often thinks to herself that she truly loves the twins. Maybe one day she’ll feel brave enough to tell them.

The back of the stadium has plenty of nooks and crannies for her to explore, and Rey hums the melody of her first six songs to herself, practicing some of the enunciation, as she weaves through the equipment that’s set up back here. Not a soul is in sight, and she skips and climbs to her heart’s content.

Then, she comes around a corner and stops dead in her tracks. She isn’t alone after all.

A small boy, maybe five or six years old, wearing a bright orange jumper and white pants, stares at her in equal surprise. A grin spreads across his face though, highlighting the gap in his front teeth. “You’re-!”

“Shh!” Rey looks around, slightly panicked. Is there a crowd with this child? “I’m … hiding.”

“Hiding from what?” He cocks his head at her, his curls swaying adorably, and Rey kneels down to talk more quietly to him. She doesn’t know much about children, but she thinks you’re supposed to make yourself smaller so they don’t feel threatened (or maybe that’s cats...she’s really not sure).

“Security.” Rey shrugs and smiles at him. “They don’t like it when I’m by myself.”

“My dad doesn’t like that either.” The boy looks guilty, and Rey grins at him.

“You’re hiding too, then?”

“Mhm.” The boy’s eyes are still wide, taking the sight of her in. “Are you really Rey Niima?”

“I am.” Rey holds her hand out to him, and he takes it, his chubby, small fingers oddly tacky and warm. Maybe that’s also a child thing. “And you are?”

“Benjamin Bartholomew Dameron the Eighth,” he says solemnly, shaking her hand with a great deal of pompous authority. Rey decides immediately that she likes him. Still, though, that name.

“The eighth?” She asks incredulously. Eight people had been named _that_?

“My dad calls me that for some reason.” Benjamin Bartholomew shakes his head with a worldly sigh far older than his actual years. “My mom thinks it’s funny, so she lets it happen. You know. To amuse him.” He accompanies this with a head tilt and a quirk of his lips that he’s obviously observed in an adult; no doubt, that’s where he got such a funny turn of phrase, as well.

“Is your mum or dad here, Benjamin Bartholomew?”

“You can call me B.B. Everyone else does.”

“Alright then, B.B. Is your mum or dad with you?” Rey scans the area around them anxiously, but it’s just as abandoned as before. They’re maybe two hallways over from the regular venue, so hopefully mum or dad isn’t far behind.

“Mom is at home with her husband,” B.B. explains. “His name is Iolo, and he told me to call him whatever I wanted.”

“Alright then. So, your dad is here?” Rey doesn’t know how to push for this information more gracefully, but she doesn’t know a lot about kids. She doesn’t want to break this one by accident. _Don’t they need to be fed, like, frequently? What if he has asthma? Or some other life-threatening condition?_ Rey’s eyes widen at the thought, and eyes him warily for an inhaler or an Epi-Pen or some sort of identification tag with a phone number on it.

“Yeah. He likes your music, too. This is one of my Christmas presents.” B.B. climbs on a nearby crate and swings his feet back and forth, his heels catching on the wood now and then. “He’s probably looking for me.”

“So, we should go find him?” Rey asks nervously, her eyes sweeping the entrance to the storage area.

“No, I prob’ly went far enough.” B.B. hums to himself for a second, and Rey swallows the urge to scream in anxiety. “Dad always says that if I get lost, I should stay still with a trusted adult until he finds me.”

Rey looks around for a trusted adult, or at least an adult. And then she has a staggering, terrifying realization.

She’s the adult.

_Oh, God._

“Um. With” - Rey points at herself, and B.B. nods with a big grin.

“We can hang out!” B.B. declares excitedly.

Rey is due to actually prepare for the concert in - she checks her watch - an hour. She has a hysterical vision, then, one of her lugging Benjamin Bartholomew Dameron the Eighth on stage with her at the start of the concert and holding him under the armpits, out towards the crowd like Simba while shouting “ _Does this small child belong to you_?” into the mic.

“My dad has a huge crush on you.” B.B.’s comment breaks her daydream, and Rey looks at him, amused despite herself.

“Does he?”

“Not in a _weird_ way.” B.B. waves his chubby, sticky hand. “But he really likes your music.” His little feet keep kicking at the crate, and he tilts his head to the side as though thinking about something, his curls flopping around endearingly, his wide brown eyes serious.

“Really?”

“Yeah. He likes your new stuff better.”

“Me too.”

“Me too!” B.B. shouts, clearly not wanting to be left out. “You sound happier now.”

“I _am_ happier now.” She hops up on the crate next to B.B. the Eighth, and she considers digging around in her bag for the deck of cards she keeps to play solitaire. Maybe they could play Go Fish - kids like Go Fish, right?

“Good. My dad was super sad when you told your story to Mr. Calrissian.”

“Oh?”

“Yeah. He cried. He had to leave the room, and Mom and Iolo didn’t even tease him about it because you don’t tease people who are sad.”

Rey thinks that maybe Mom and Iolo had made it a point to teach B.B. the Eighth a lesson in the moment, especially as B.B. says it in an almost lecturing tone.

Just then, there’s a shout of “ _B.B_?”, a man’s voice, coming from the corridor.

“Uh-oh.” B.B. looks sheepish as the shouting man came into view.

Rey can automatically tell this is Benjamin Bartholomew’s father, from the curly hair and the shape of his face; and, if she’s being honest, the way he’s shouting, “ _Benjamin Bartholomew Dameron_?” with wild panic in his voice.

“Over here!” B.B. waves merrily from his perch next to Rey, and she smiles guiltily and waves as well.

The father turns white as a sheet, and then bright red, staggering to a halt in front of their crate. Rey stares at him as well - because oh Dear  _Lord,_ he's pretty.

“Uhm.”

“I made a friend!” B.B. announces royally, leaning forward to tg on his dad’s sweater.

“I see that.” The dad’s mouth is hanging open, and he closes it firmly and then points a finger at his son. “Where did you go?”

“I made a friend,” B.B. repeats, as though that were too obvious for his father to miss. “...D-”

“If you say Duh, you are not getting dessert for a month.” The father says sternly, and B.B. immediately stops talking. “I swear, you get that from the Disney Channel.”

Rey snorts with laughter - she’d gotten her start on the Disney Channel, after all, and she couldn’t agree more with B.B.’s father’s derision.

“Oh, crap.” He seems to remember that she’s sitting there, and he runs a hand through his (admittedly beautiful) hair, before holding it out to her. “I’m Poe Dameron, by the way. B.B.’s dad.”

“Rey Niima,” she says in response, shaking Poe’s hand.

“I know.” His eyes widen in incredulity and he laughs shakily. “Sorry. It’s just. Oh, wow.”

“Your voice sounds funny,” B.B. points out. Poe shoots his son a look.

“I’m very, very sorry that I took my eyes off of you.” Poe ruffles his son’s curls - which were clearly inherited from him, Rey notes, studying his thick black hair. “You scared me, buddy. Thank you so much, Ms. Niima.”

“It’s just Rey. And it was no problem.” She smiles at him and sighs to herself. She definitely appreciated the candor of Benjamin Bartholomew Dameron the Eighth, as she’s constantly surrounded by people who she pays, and who therefore don’t want to risk anything that might upset her (as though Rey would be upset by a little honesty).

Poe nudges B.B., who gives her a toothy smile. “Thank you.”

“Now say goodbye.”

Rey wants to whine at that, but luckily B.B. does for both of them before telling her goodbye with a pout. “Also before I go - you should know that you have the prettiest voice ever.”

“Why, thank you.” Rey’s taken aback when B.B. flings his arms around her, but his warm little body crushed into her side feels sort of nice, in a way she didn’t expect, and Rey realizes this is probably the first time she’s been genuinely hugged since...ever.

“Well. Second prettiest.” Rey lifts her eyebrows at B.B., who looks at her thoughtfully. “My dad’s voice is the bestest in the world.”

“Is that so?”

“ _Benjamin Bartholomew._ ”

Rey shrugs and smiles at Poe, completely unbothered. “Maybe your dad could sing something for me? If it’s the bestest in the world?”

B.B. nods eagerly, and Poe groans and wipes a hand over his eyes. “This isn’t happening,” he mutters so quietly Rey thinks he wanted her to not hear it.

“You don’t have to, of course.” Rey wiggles her foot out and taps it against Poe’s shoe. He stares down at where their feet are making contact, his ears and cheeks beet red. “Maybe we could sing a duet?”

“Oh, YES!” B.B. bounces up and down, and Poe mumbles something in Spanish. “Mom says that’s a bad word.”

“It is a bad word.” Poe points at his son again, and Rey notices callouses on his hands, ones that she’s pretty sure are from playing guitar. “Don’t repeat it.”

“I won’t if you sing with Ms. Rey.”

“Just Rey.”

“Ugh.” Poe rubs his temples and looks over his shoulder - no one’s nearby, and Rey and B.B. both smile at him, partners in crime, when he turns back around. “If Ms. Rey doesn’t mind.”

“ _Just Rey_. And she doesn’t.” Rey feels an odd little bubble in her chest, almost unrecognizable. It’s happiness, she thinks. How odd, that something as apparently basic as happiness can flutter with such foreignness inside of her. “What shall we sing?”

“Well.” Poe rubs the back of his neck.

“He knows all your songs,” B.B. informs her, and Poe’s expression suggests that dessert might not be in B.B.’s future indefinitely. “But - sing the special song, dad!”

“Which song is that?”

“Oh, I don’t know if-” Poe blushes deeper and sighs. “He’s talking about-”

“It’s Cold Outside!” B.B. interrupts. Another look from his father. “Sorry.” He looks back up at Rey, who’s smiling again. “Dad sings along with you in the car, and it sounds--” B.B. wraps his arms around his middle and wiggles happily, which Rey takes as a compliment.

“Well, It’s Cold Outside it is!” Rey declares, clapping her hands together.

“Are you going to count us off, Maestro?” Poe asks B.B. sarcastically, and Rey giggles when B.B. lifts his hands like a tiny conductor and points at her.

Feeling only a little awkward, Rey starts singing. “ _I really can’t stay-_ ”

“ _Baby it's cold outside”_ \- Rey stiffens slightly at the sound of Poe’s voice - it couldn’t be -

A little shaken, she keeps singing. “ _I gotta go away_ -”

“ _Baby it's cold outside_.”

_“This evening has been-”_

_“-Been hoping that you’d drop in-”_

“- _So very nice_ -”

At this point, she has no doubt: Poe Dameron was absolutely the man she heard singing yesterday, the man whose voice she chased down a street. Feeling a little floored that fate had brought them together like this, _twice,_ Rey can barely finish out the next verse of the song, but she does, through sheer reliance on auto pilot.

_“I wish I knew how-”_

“ _Your eyes are like starlight now_ ,” Poe’s voice sounds a little more wondering than she’s used to, a little more genuine, and she feels a real blush rising to her cheeks.

 _“-To break this spell._ ”

“ _I'll take your hat-_ ” Poe’s cut off by a voice coming over the loudspeakers.

“Rey Niima, you’re needed in Make-Up. Ten minutes ago. Rey Niima, get to Make-Up.” Leia can be heard rolling her eyes over the announcement, and Rey laughs guiltily.

“I guess that’s me.” Rey stands and smiles at both Damerons. “Thank you for the duet.”

“Thank you,” Poe mumbles, smiling over at his son, who’d had stars in his eyes for the entirety of their impromptu performance. Rey realizes this was probably the most fun she’d had singing since she was twelve or thirteen years old. “Sorry that it had to be...well…”

“That song?” Rey finishes for him, half-shrugging. It’s just a song, after all, and while its connotations are definitely disturbing, she’s performed it enough that she’s a little numb to it.

“Dad says no means no,” B.B. chimes in. “And while we like the song because it sounds pretty, we need to know that women don’t owe us anything.”

Rey swears she can _feel_ the heat rising from Poe’s cheeks, but she smiles at B.B. without a hint of awkwardness. “You are just full of wisdom, Benjamin Bartholomew the Eighth.” She holds a hand out to him, and they shake one more time; B.B. surges forward to sneak another hug in, and Poe yelps.

“Buddy! We talked about that!”

“Oh, right.” B.B. pulls back, and he finally looks embarrassed. “Is it okay if I hug you?”

“It absolutely is.” Rey beams at him, and hugs him back, bending at the waist to press her hands into his back. “Thank you for asking.”

B.B. blushes as he walks away, and he takes his dad’s hand.

“He was right, by the way,” Rey says to Poe with a smile. “You really do have the bestest voice in the world.”

Poe’s blush deepens, and he shakes his head. “No, ma’am, I think that title is taken.” It’s her turn to blush, and she worries at her bottom lip with her teeth.

“Look, I don’t know if - um, would you…” Rey fidgets, her hands lacing together and unlacing. She’s never had a need for these before, having no friends, no family. Her closest thing to a friend is Finn, but he’s another performer, and rarely gets to attend her concerts. “I can get you backstage passes,” she finishes in a rush. “...If you want.”

“You don’t need to-” Poe says, eyes wide, but B.B. tugs on his hand, nodding fervently. “...Thank you, that..that would be-”

“The best Christmas present ever!” B.B. finishes for him, his voice loud and nearly squawking with excitement. Rey laughs at his exuberance, and gestures for them to follow her to security.

Later, when she looks over mid-performance, she nearly forgets the next verse to the lead single off her new album, the song she’s practiced more than anything. She forgets because standing there, behind all the equipment and pulleys, are Poe and B.B. Dameron, the son proudly perched up on his dad’s shoulders, waving at her excitedly from the sidelines.

Rey laughs into her mic, that bubble of happiness from earlier expanding without question, and narrowly dodges a back-up dancer, as she skips to the front of the stage, singing about life and freedom and fresh starts, and she thinks she’s starting to get the real meaning of the words she’d written all those months ago.

Yeah. Rey definitely likes Chicago.

***

A few days before Christmas, James Corden sits after shaking his guest’s hand, and the audience quiets down, the rapturous applause that had greeted her fading away so they can hear what she has to say.

“So! Rey Niima, long time no see - I hear you’ve been very busy with your tour.”

“Just a bit, James.” The girl laughs and taps her host on the arm. “Between you and me, I’m a little tired.”

“I should say so. Fifteen cities in twelve days? I can’t even imagine. I have a hard enough time getting to the bodega on the corner of my street.”

“This country is massive, isn’t it?” The two Brits spend some time rolling their eyes at the sheer, idiotic size of the States compared to their homeland. “But, that’s the price to pay for rebuilding my career. I’m happy to do it - and it’s been a really wonderful month.”

“Any standouts on your tour? What was the best city?”

“I quite liked Chicago. I met some very wonderful people while I was there, and I’ll be going back to see them again soon.”

“Ah! Fans of yours?”

“I think it would be more fair to say that I’m a fan of theirs.”

Corden spends a few more minutes trying to get her to say who it is - is it a boyfriend? A girlfriend? Family? - but Rey Niima remains silent, a knowing and sweet smile on her face.

Two thousand miles away, a man smiles back at the television, his young son tucked securely into his side, dozing peacefully under the lights of their Christmas tree.

**Author's Note:**

> Day 15 of Damerey December in the books!
> 
>  
> 
> (I sort of Really Really like this universe...anyone else?)


End file.
